This invention relates to an improved magazine cartridge loader and in particular to an apparatus for orienting a plurality of cartridges and loading the oriented cartridges into a magazine for use with firearms.
Devices for loading multiple cartridges into a magazine are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,739,572 to Brandenburg shows a device including two cam followers to move a cartridge in two linear directions to load the cartridge into a magazine. U.S. Pat. No. 4,970,820 to Miller et al illustrates the use of a spring loaded feed finger to achieve the proper transport motion to load a cartridge into a magazine.
Further, there are several references which show star wheels used to load cartridges into a magazine. These patents utilize the star wheel to separate an advancing column of cartridges aligned end to end into a sequence of cartridges to be transported by other mechanisms to the magazine. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,034,644 to Hupp et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,879,829 to Miller et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,983,782 to Sawyer all provide examples of star wheels used in this fashion.
All of these patents illustrate complex mechanisms to load cartridges into a magazine and none of these patents show a simple rotatable cam for accepting a cartridge and forcing it into a magazine.